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Where is our youth? This is the burning question reminding me of the question God asked Adam: Where are you?
Can our South African youth answer that question without fear or guilt?
Would they be happy to be found where they are, unlike the biblical Adam who was afraid to expose his and his wife’s nakedness to God?
It helps to start with a definition of what youth is – it refers to people between the ages of 14 and 35. Others might say 15 and 24, because that should be the age from Grade 10 (FET) to at least the first year of a tertiary qualification.
Between the ages of 24 and 34 ideally you should be an employed youth if you are not continuing with your post-graduate studies.
Data from the Community Survey 2016 was used to analyse intergenerational educational mobility, that is whether or not children realised higher educational qualifications than their parents.
Positive trends were found across all educational categories, with the largest improvement being seen in the completed secondary category – as compared to 17.9% of parents who had completed secondary schooling, 45.2% of their children aged 20 to 34 had completed secondary schooling, a 27 percentage point difference.
It was found that close to 70% of those who had completed secondary schooling were first-generation high-school graduates.
Similarly, just over 70% of those who completed post-secondary education were first-generation post-secondary qualification holders.
The data shows that the higher the parent’s education level, the more likely the children are to achieve upward educational mobility.
Among children aged 20 to 34 who had completed a post-secondary educational qualification, 51% had parents with some or completed secondary schooling, and 19% had parents with some or completed primary schooling.
The largest escalation in intergenerational mobility was observed among black Africans, with 76% of those who completed a post-secondary education having achieved a higher education level than their parents.
So, from these statistics, we know that a higher number of our young people in 2016, were relatively more educated than their parents were in 1976.
The South African education system is accessible to the poor yet the quality of education is not equal, hence the results in this report show that past structural inequality is still a big part of educational mobility.
There are currently 10 million South African between the ages 15 and 24. More than 54% of them are unemployed.
In other words 3,3 million of our young people (almost equal to the population of many countries such as Botswana) have literally nothing to occupy their time.
No wonder the rate of crime (mostly violent), cash-in-transit heists, and drug related crimes are so prevalent.
All service delivery marches have a common denominator – an element of young people who instigate violence while communities try and air genuine grievances.
During apartheid, the Group Areas Act and other methods of keeping the races apart kept the white population from where black people resided.
It was possible for the white race to encounter their black colleagues only at work completely oblivious to life in the township.
Easily believing their black colleagues arrive late at work because they are “lazy” and that the high rate of murder and crime in the townships is a result of the “inherently” violent nature of black people.
Today, however, democracy has created two different worlds of black people.
First, those whose experience of the youth of the country is the educated young elites at various tertiary institutions, who have a bright future and are mostly employed. This is a sliver of the total number of youth.
But for too many South Africans their only observations of the millions of our unemployed youths is through news channel TV lenses when they cover crime, violent service deliver marches or an Economic Freedom Fighters rally.
Solidarity is what is needed among black South Africans who have progressed in life in the new democracy.
If we don’t show solidarity with the marginalised youth of our country, the alternative will be too dire to contemplate.
The 2030 National Development Plan goals for education will become a pipe dream.
• Modise is a financial services professional and was one of the leaders of the 1976 student uprisings.
